Six elephants were killed in one day in Ethiopia by poachers, it is one of the largest massacres in East Africa and, as always, the whole thing, to have their precious fangs to be revised in gold to the illegal market that connects the continent black with the Asian one.
The elephants according to Ganabul Bulmi, the park's chief keeper, had ventured out of the Mago National Park to drink and the poachers took advantage of it. “They then removed all the tusks from the elephants. A mass murder. We have never seen anything like this before, "he said. In addition to these five, two other elephants are missing, who may have been killed on the same day. "It was also difficult to capture the perpetrators because the locals living in the area are armed and unwilling to collaborate with officials," continued Ganabul.
According to wildlife officials, Ethiopia had more than 10,000 elephants in the 1970s, but poaching and the loss of biodiversity due to climate change and deforestation have reduced the number to around 2,500 to 3,000 in recent years. We have talked about poaching many times, but Daniel Pawlos, director of the Wildlife Conservation Authority, a government entity, said that it was not thought that there was also in Ethiopia.
“Last year we documented up to 10 elephant killings. What makes this episode different is the high number of elephants killed in one day, " he explained.
5 elephants poached by armed groups in 1 night in Mago National Park , Lower Omo, #Ethiopia. Ivory tusks nowhere to be found. The impacts of #COVID19 on our wildlife and nature conservation efforts are going to felt incredibly hard. #wildlife #conservation #elephants #africa pic.twitter.com/JKKO2Ufs0r— Greta Francesca Iori (@TheItaliopian) June 1, 2020
Officials suspect that most elephant tusks arrive on the Asian market. Recall that in 2015, Ethiopian officials burned 6.1 tons of illegal elephant tusks, ivory objects, sculptures and various pieces of jewelry to discourage poaching and the ivory trade. But unfortunately, the situation does not seem to have changed. The Covid-19 pandemic left the poachers free, as reserves remained uncovered due to the absence of hijacked emergency controls. To all this is added the fact that the elephant population in Ethiopia is threatened by the animal-human conflict and that national conservation efforts have been hampered in recent years by civil and political unrest.
An estimated 400,000 elephants live across Africa but are under pressure everywhere. In Botswana, where about 130,000 elephants live, hunting licenses are sold again after the lifting of a five-year ban in 2019. Here, officials argue that hunting is necessary to alleviate the conflict between animals and humans, especially humans. farmers. The drought was also a problem. In September and October, more than 200 elephants died from lack of water in Zimbabwe's main conservation areas in Mana Pools and Hwange National Park.
Source: The Guardian